I don't think that moving OS with children is madness whatever their age. You can get a relocation company to take care of heaps of the logistics. My brother's company provides a relocation as part of his package - if he moves into their accommodation they hook up utilities and so on. If he arranges his own housing they just provide removalists.
Renting your house isn't really very hard and you can get an agent to do it.
You might need to consider education and health expenses - can your children access free education in the States or do you have to pay even for a public school? Health insurance is a biggy in the US because of the cost of health care.
What will you do with your furniture? Move it to the US? Sell it? Store it?
Do you have pets?
You're right about education... I've been wondering about that. We're thinking in many ways now is a good time to go because we don't really want to go for a long time and this way we'll probably move back before our eldest starts school anyway. But I do need to look into kindergartens and occasional care options.
The company pays relocation- they will move everything including our car if we want and they give us a real estate agent to help us find a place. Think they pay temp accomodation in the meantime then too. Only problem is we would have to pay to move it all back so we think we would sell the car and only move over furniture that we're happy to leave there when we're done.
We do have a cat... what to do about her? Will have to look into how long she would be in quarantine I guess.
Ah yes- health care! A biggie with any US job huh?!
Health care is a BIG consideration... although, get your DH to find out what's covered by his new employer, as that seems to be your ticket over there.
You probably wouldn't want to move your car, given that they drive on the other side of the road. Import cars can be the biggest headache in the world to insure, so think that through as well. Might work out better to sell your car here, then hook yourself up with a new one over there.
It's only madness if you think it will be madness. I don't really see why you couldn't do it. You'd just need to be fairly organised and have good contingency plans. I thinnk you'd be fine.
Yeah moving the car seems a bit dumb to be honest- it would be all wrong on their roads!
I guess I'm just remembering how hard the first few months were after my son was born and I'm wondering if trying to move at that point would just be a huge nightmare. And organised is NOT my middle name Then again- I'm good at pre-planning and research so can be fairly organised and I'm also good at going with the flow so I think we could make it work.
Will have to see where to from here I guess. Getting a little excited and there's no actual job offer yet! We don't know what the corporate culture towards work/life balance is yet either and we don't want to move to a job where my H is expected to work long hours.
Hi !
We've just moved overseas (from Brisbane to Belgium) with an almost 3 yr old, and a 3 month old. My DH is Belgian, so we moved for family reasons and we both had to leave jobs in Australia (though I am technically on maternity leave). My MIL had organised a rental house for us here, so at least we had accommodation covered... My Dh was lucky to find a new job pretty quickly.
Its fantastic if the company pays for relocation. Make sure they get a shipment that goes speedily though, ours took FIVE months to get here, which was 2 months longer than quoted. Meant we had no kids toys, books, and just suitcases of clothes for the first 2 months (though we did get given loads of things once we got here, so it wasn't all that bad... quite liberating to be honest!!) But it was stressful. And it was hard to decide what to pack for shipping, what to keep out to take in our suitcases, and what to store.
It's definitely not madness. It's an exciting adventure and something you will look back at and be thankful you did it. We have had no trouble at all, and the kids have been perfectly fine. Our DD will start kindy here next month, so will be bilingual before me! I have tracked down an expat group that runs Mothers Groups, so I have made some new Mummy friends with kids the same age as mine - that was the most important thing for me.
The things I am missing are mostly food related! Pumpkin and sweet potato, and I am about to run out of vegemite They sell different things in the supermarket and you don't realise what you take for granted at home in Aus.
I am also missing driving, and the independence of getting myself everywhere. We have just got a car but I have to learn to drive on the right. Bit scary with two kids! Once I can drive, I will be able to get out more, and that will help heaps. For now I am getting fit walking everywhere.
Other things to consider are:
- immunisation schedules and how you want to do that (if you vax)
- preschool / kindy systems and if you need to enrol in advance
- health insurance
- baby bonus will be paid even if you are OS, and you might also still be eligible for family benefit payments, all tax related etc. Make sure you tell Centrelink before you go.
Feel free to ask any questions you want, its still all very fresh for me! (we've been here 3 months now)
Thank you so much for all your insights and experience! Oh boy- even 3 months waiting for everything to arrive is ages! For some reason I'm hung up on how we would live without our cloth nappies more than anything else
Immunisation schedules did occur to me. We partially vax on a modified schedule and I did SO much research last time the idea of having to do it all over again with different vaccinations is a huge headache!
Glad to hear you've found a mother's group I was thinking about that too and I'm pretty sure I would be able to get hooked up well within my H's company as they fly people in from all over the world so I think there would be quite a good expat community.
So much to ponder- thank you. Ohhh I would need to send SO much vegemite in that first shipment!
I can't help you with the move, but maybe with some other info...
You will be able to send your child(ren) to public school - no fees involved...but keep in mind the school year is different - school year starts in Sept and ends in June - but your child can start at any time. However, which school depends on where you live so when choosing where to live, you want to take into account quality of schools...unfortunately, I don't know how you go about finding this info but I'm sure it's out there and US real estate agents who you will meet in your search for a rental will be able to provide you with info as well. By the way, with the way the property market is going there, you should get a good deal on rent.
OH - make sure that in your DH's employment (and since it sounds like it is not an expat package) if they terminate him early, they pay for your move back home plus any "early termination" costs (i.e., of lease). Employment laws in the US are very different...2 weeks notice is norm and there's no statutory right to any kind of payout - only what you negotiate in the contract and giving what you are going to undertake to move, this isn't unreasonable.
As a prior poster said, health insurance is key - so much so that it it's not part of the package, I would not go (however, I'd be shocked if it wasn't)...just make sure there are no waiting periods for anything - the HR representative should be able to provide this info. Make sure it starts from day 1 of move even if DH doesn't start work until day 10 (if you know what I mean)...if you can't get it from Day 1 because DH isn't starting work on Day 1, then make sure you have travel insurance for the gap. You don't want to be in the US without insurance - not even for 60 seconds.
Bring all your children's immunization records - the public schools may want to see this --- or they may want a letter from your GP or a doctor there who would take into account your Aus history.
Keep in mind that things are much cheaper in the US - you will be shocked about how much less cars, furniture, white goods, clothing, shoes, shampoo, make-up, sheets, towels, etc. etc. are....if you are curious as to say how much a car would cost - think of a car, and go to their US site - you should be able to find the "sticker" price - NO ONE pays the sticker price! but it is a start for comparison as well as costing.
Hope this helps somewhat - what area of the US would you be living in?
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They sell different things in the supermarket and you don't realise what you take for granted at home in Aus. 
I was thinking about that too and I'm pretty sure I would be able to get hooked up well within my H's company as they fly people in from all over the world so I think there would be quite a good expat community.
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